


bad dreams

by arkvdy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Love at First Sight, Non-Linear Narrative, One Shot, POV Third Person, Past Child Abuse, like soulmates who don't want to be soulmates, soft soulmates though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkvdy/pseuds/arkvdy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine: two girls. One made of ash and bone, her hair a tornado and her hands ready wildfire; the other, untempered steel. Imagine them seeing each other for the first time, certain that the unfamiliar pounding in their chests is hatred, pure and simple. And understand that it is not hatred, nor is it pure and simple. It is, unfortunately, love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bad dreams

Imagine: two girls. One made of ash and bone, her hair a tornado and her hands ready wildfire; the other, untempered steel. Imagine them seeing each other for the first time - space, folding on itself in an arc of kaleidoscopic glory - now compressing, now expanding, like a fan being opened by a cosmic hand. Imagine the slight twitch of a mouth or the tilt of a head. The mutual recognition. Yes, you, too, have been wounded. You, too, are afraid. Imagine them circling around each other, a pair of skin-and-bone wolves, thrown into orbit by their centrifugal energy, unable to close the gap and unable to tear away. Imagine them snapping at each other's heels, ears flat and hackles raised, certain that the unfamiliar pounding in their chests is hatred, pure and simple. And understand that it is not hatred, nor is it pure and simple. It is, unfortunately, love.

* * *

Her first memory is this: an open-palmed hand raised to strike, hovering just above her head. She is still small, barely able to reach above her father's knees, but she already knows the touch of discipline. It is sudden and inexplicable like lightning - the clink of a belt uncinching, the edge of a voice unsheathing. She has forgotten the crime; no doubt it means nothing now. But she will not forget the crack of the whip. It has become one with the voice of her father and resounds in her memories as the voice of a vengeful god, cruel and resolute.

Hux glances at her undisturbed bed and begins to prepare for the day.

* * *

 _I am at your command, Supreme Leader._  

_We have a new recruit arriving today. I want you to greet her at the outer gate._

_With all due respect, we are scheduled to begin construction on the base this afternoon._

_Do I detect insubordination?_

_No, sir._

_Then you will meet her at the gate. It will not be too much trouble, I trust._

_No, sir._

_She is only a few years younger than yourself - a valuable asset. Her name is Kylo Ren._

_Yes, sir._

_Go on. Report back to me once you have shown her to her room. Oh, and General—_

_Yes, Supreme Leader?_

_Beat some sense into her, if you can._

* * *

Her first memory is this: an open-palmed hand with candy, lifted high above her, and the laugh of a gentle giant. She reaches, reaches again, but it soars away every time she comes near. She feels the injured anger rising - she is too young, after all, to know that this is a game - until she bursts into tears. She makes his chair quiver with her rage, and the voices suddenly grow hushed, the laugh dissolving into a whisper. The candy reappears, but it has lost its appeal now. The voices are tinged with worry, maybe even fear. After a quick pat on the head, her parents disappear into the next room, leaving her with her nurse, and the brightness of her first two years gives way to dim uneasiness.

Ben tumbles out of her new bed. She does not bother with the comb; she grabs her uniform and heads straight for the door.

* * *

_Supreme Leader, I—_

_—have done the right thing, my child—_

_—by joining you?_

_We have done the right thing—_

_—for my father was weak and foolish—_

_—and we must kill him._

_Kill him?_

_Not yet, not yet. Do not be afraid._

_He dared refuse me—_

_—when he had no power, not nearly so much power—_

_—as I will use to rule—_

_—as we will use to rule—_

_—the galaxy._

* * *

When Hux steps out of her room, there is no one there. The corridors are filled with the hum of engines churning far beneath the bezeled steel floors upon which she walks. Though there is usually someone stationed outside her door, he has, in the absence of danger, momentarily stepped out. On these hushed mornings, she almost regrets the violence that will ensue.

She reaches for the intercom and sends a terse message to the Supreme Leader, then straightens and heads towards the lower gate. She is to meet the new recruit today, a certain Jedi-turned-fiend whose powers are reputedly unheard of for the past fifty years. Privately, she believes this is nonsense of the worst sort - a bag of parlor tricks designed to propagandize the unsavory bits of the “Dark Side,” which is their way of saying “the winning side.” But it is not her place to say so, and if her job requires putting up with a puppet magician whilst implementing her own strategies under the radar, she will abide. She has done it before.

Her father's face rises up from the murk, accusatory even in the afterlife.

_I always wanted a son._

_I will be better than any son, Father._

_We shall see._

_I will make you proud._

_We shall see._

She strides through the halls, all purpose and no passion, already devising the best means of making the new recruit cooperate while simultaneously allowing her ego to go unscathed. It is possible - it is always possible, of course - to use brute force, but she dislikes brute force. It is clumsy, wasteful, and she dislikes expending unnecessary energy. Most are won over by a few well-calculated praises and perhaps the occasional rebuke. She will try this approach first.

Something in the air - perhaps the scent of disinfectant, perhaps the drone of stormtroopers performing their exercises next door - reminds her of her own first day at the academy. One full head shorter than the smallest pupil and two stones lighter, she was an easy target - or so they thought. But she knew how to be both a lion and a fox. She had learned from the best. Within two weeks, she had established herself as a dangerous enemy and an even more dangerous friend.

When she graduated, she was a wholly different person. Hair slicked back, feet apart and posture erect, gray eyes unflinching. Not very much taller or heavier, but the recklessness was gone, and the fire. In its place was something distilled over the years, essentialized and purified. Something diamondlike in its sharpness.

She erased all traces of her first name and came to be known only as Hux.

* * *

_I am at your command, Supreme Leader._

_Very good, Hux. Have you done as I asked?_

_My father is dead._

_Excellent. And no one suspects?_

_No one._

_You have surpassed him. He was weak and foolish in his last days; a defector to the cause._

_He deserved to die._

_Indeed. With you as my Rook, I only need find a Knight to play your equal._

_I will be better than any Knight._

_Of course, my child. You know I have high hopes for you. You are to rule the galaxy._

* * *

When Ben steps out of her room, there is no one there. The burnished metal interiors of the Finalizer are a welcome change from the greenery of Takodana. She allows herself to pause, breathe in the canned metallic air. She does not allow herself to miss the heat of the sun, the gentle sway of thin-limbed trees, the sound of her peers laughing and bickering on their way to the stream…

The clearing of a throat. Ben snaps to attention and notices for a first time that there was a guard stationed outside her door. She peers at him curiously now, but he only informs her that she will be meeting the General in half an hour and begins to lead her down the corridor.

If she is honest with herself, Ben is afraid. She imagines the General - an old man, venerable, full of disdain. She is not afraid of him, exactly, but of what he will become to her: the inescapable truth, the irrevocable decision. In her mind, he is not a man, but an insignia with a voice. A voice and a glare.

Then again, she has already murdered ten such voices and glares.

_There is so much light in you, Ben. I can feel it._

_You are wrong, Mother. You always were._

At night, their screams come back to her. She sits rigid underneath the covers, clutching her sheets. Her fingers hurt, as if these small agonies are retribution for each of the lives she has taken. She fights her own screams, pulling at her hair and rocking with her arms over her head - as if this will drive the spirits away. Never does she feel as small, as young as when she has these nightmares. Her mother can feel it, she knows. But what she truly wants is to feel her father’s arms around her once more.

A traitorous thought. Ben pushes her hair back impatiently and concentrates on emptying her mind of such delusions. Her father is no great man, she knows that. He belongs to an inferior class of beings, the ones who neither feel nor seek the Force. If the General belongs to that class, then he will be easy to handle.

Ben flexes her hands, balls them into fists as she walks. She has seen warriors swagger like this, and adjusts her gait to more of a prowl.

When they arrive, the guard turns to look at her over his shoulder, and Ben feels as if he can pierce her skin with his gaze.

“Name?”

“What?”

“Who am I to announce?”

She has to clear her throat before she can be heard. The name drops like lead, not bright, not affectionate. Empty of meaning, but waiting to be filled.

“Tell him Kylo Ren is here to see him.”

* * *

_Supreme Leader. Where have you gone?_

_I am here. I am always here._  

 _How am I to_ _give forth my mind_   _when you desert me?_

_We have work to do._

_Let me serve you, fight at your side—_

_—when the great galactic war shall begin—_

_—for we are powerful enough—_

_—but we must be patient._

_What are we waiting for?_

_The pieces to come together. You will understand—_

_—in due time. But when?_

_Soon. I have found the Rook to your Knight—_

_—but I will be better than any Rook._

_Of course, my child. You know I have high hopes for you. You are to rule the galaxy._

* * *

There is no way around it. Kylo Ren is, in a word, beautiful. She catches Hux off-guard, with her mess of black curls and dark, fathomless eyes. She wears rage like a cape, and though her hands tremble with the force of her grip, she exudes red-hot magnetic energy. Hux watches her movements and cannot help imagining herself becoming a part of them. For there is an animal grace to her, a certain vitality that excites her, makes her feel young and free again, unquashed by punishment, expectation, or fear.

“Nice to finally meet you, General,” she says, proffering her hand, and it is all Hux can do to shake it as she regains her composure.

“Welcome to the First Order,” Hux replies finally. “I trust we will soon establish a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“Oh, I don’t know about mutual. I think that depends on you, General.”

The cleverness is another surprise. Hux ignores it. “Shall I show you to your room?”

“No need; I arrived a week ago. I’ve just been cooped up.”

“The mess hall, then.” 

“I won’t be eating there.”

Hux adjusts her gloves - a nervous habit, and one she could have sworn she had gotten rid of years ago. Something about this stranger has loosened her and tightened her at the same time, and she feels unpleasantly spied on. Though she prides herself on remaining polished even in a crisis, she is forced to accept that she has been bested.

“Well, then,” Hux finishes lamely, “I am sure we will meet some other time.”

“Fine by me,” says Kylo Ren. “If you’ve got an hour to spare, I’m pretty damn free right now.”

* * *

There is no way around it. Ben could call the General many colorful things, but the first that comes to mind is—beautiful. Hers is an icy loveliness, all restraint and posture, from the side-parted coiffure to the shiny-toed boots. That she is a woman is enough of a surprise; that she is a slim-hipped girl with delicate features and arched eyebrows, thin as a reed and yet immovable as marble - is unbearable. Ben is unsure of what she wants more: to protect that unbroken skin or to mar it.

She takes pleasure in the conundrum, and in the effect she has on her opponent as well. Though she cannot enter her mind without her knowledge, she can sense her thoughts, and they flatter her immensely. There is desire in her gaze, and curiosity. And, more tenuously, almost beyond detection, something like fear.

Before Ben can stop herself, she is sinking. No; she is falling, and fast. Behind those dove-gray eyes, there resides someone with a terrible enormity of feeling. Someone burning as bright and as ravenously as she. Ben is not fooled by the outward austerity; the General’s soul is pure fire. It has only been tamed, whipped into shape by its master.

When the two of them sit down at a table, she knows immediately that she has lost this battle. The General does not look at her, but somewhere over her left shoulder. Their conversation is trite and brief, with especial terseness on the General’s side.

Accepting her defeat, Kylo Ren laughs.

“You know,” she says, “I expected you to be a lot older.”

Hux smiles. It is an ugly smile, full of hidden meanings and not happy. Her voice is hard, her gaze still averted.

“I get that a lot.”

* * *

There are bad dreams, and there are havers of bad dreams. The girls do not know it yet, but they have become inextricable. They do not know it yet, but theirs is a bloody story, fraught not with misunderstanding, but too much understanding. They fight because they are insatiable, and because they are insatiable they will have each other.

It is thus that bad dreams come to General Hux in the form of a certain Kylo Ren, and thus that she takes to avoiding her. It is unexpectedly easy. Less easy to forget the intelligent beast behind a young and unruly face, or to tamp down the panic that flares inside her every time she whispers her name. Less easy to divine that, on the other side of a growing wall, Kylo Ren - in spite of her love for a pair of dove-gray eyes - is avoiding her back.

The next time they meet, several months later, it is by Snoke’s command, and Kylo Ren has grown darker, older. Hux, in turn, has grown colder, better extinguished the flame that should have died long ago.

She stands outside the torture chamber with her hands clasped behind her back, knowing that Kylo Ren has already sensed her presence. But when Kylo Ren emerges, she is unrecognizable. Clad in black swirling robes, a cowl and a mask obscuring her face, she has become a voice and a glare.

“It's in a droid,” she says. “A BB unit.”

Against her better judgment, Hux tries to imagine her face under that mask, remember the sound of her voice undistorted by its modulator. “Well then. If it's on Jakku we'll soon have it.”

“I leave that to you.”

Hux remains silent as Ren strides away. Her prowl is more convincing now.

She knows it is too early to mourn, but she already does.

**Author's Note:**

> full disclosure: i've only watched (or remember watching) one star wars movie, and i haven't posted fanfic in at least 5 years... i also probably fudged the timeline a bit to get their meeting the way i wanted. anyway, i hope you enjoyed!


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